Pew Cards

This post over at {my other little blog} Penned & Pretty was so loved that its getting posted here too, because I know you will all adore this idea.If you are looking for an easy and sneaky way to make sure that your loved ones get a front row seat during your ceremony, include these little {bride's side & groom's side} pew cards in the wedding invitations you send your closest family members. On the back, simply write a little with instructions to bring the pew card to the ceremony and hand it to an usher to obtain their VIP seating as you say your vows. Now that makes everyone happy, doesn't it?
found via: Twig & Thistle here

Shop Update

Dear bloggity blog friends,
I just wanted to thank you all for the wonderful response that I have received in response to this little post in which I let you know that I was toying with opening up shop and addressing envelopes for the invitations, save the dates and so much more for brides-to-be. I am excited to share with you all that the doors to my little shop will be opening soon {once I straighten out a few more details}! At some point this week I hope to share with you all of the exciting details regarding the new businazz, which will include a brand new blog!

Also, I mentioned here that I would like to give my first few clients an introductory rate. If you were one of the first five clients to contact me, I will be e-mailing you this week to discuss the introductory rate with you. Any other e-mails that have been sent my way will be answered shortly, as soon as I work out my pricing schedule. Just so you know, cross my heart that my prices will be more affordable than you can imagine.

I cannot wait to work with each and every one of you! Thank you for making my dream of owning a business {suddenly} come into fruition.

And, as always, because every post should have a pretty picture....

from the lovely blog of paul johnson

Poll: Addressing the Envelopes

One of my favorite bloggers, Sarah from classic bride, has launched her own calligraphy shop! Head on over to SD Calligraphy to check out samples of her gorgeous work!

Speaking of calligraphy, I have to admit that I have toyed with opening up shop as well. I have always loved picking up a fresh pen and watching the ink flow onto the paper. Addressing the envelopes for our save the dates, invitations and thank you cards was something that I looked forward to and loved doing. I attempted to learn true calligraphy {as featured by SD Calligraphy and Laura Hooper}, but I just couldn't do it. It didn't look right and it just wasn't "me." Instead, I addressed our envelopes with my own {pretty} handwriting. And the envelope recipients loved the results.

So, dear readers. I created a little poll, just to get a feel for your opinions. How will you address your envelopes? Will you spend a little money and adorn your envelopes with the pretty calligraphy of SD Calligraphy and Laura Hooper? Would you turn your envelopes over to someone like me to address them, for a low price, with simply pretty handwriting? Or are you sending them through the printer/addressing them yourself? Please vote on the poll to the left or simply leave a comment!

p.s. for those interested, please contact me for addresssing services. i'm thinking $20 to address your envelopes + shipping + cost of envelopes {or you may purchase the envelopes yourself and send them to me}. my e-mail/contact info is on the right side of this blog!

The Laundry List and Addressing the Envelopes

I think I have gone off the deep end. The past two days while at work my thoughts have been consumed with thoughts of how much ribbon I am going to need to order and what invitation design we should go with. At night I come home and sit in front of the computer for HOURS further agonizing over said thoughts that have been bottled up and filed away thorough out the day. While said ideas are bottled up and filed away, they multiply. All of a sudden, before I know it, I have created/dreamed up more projects for myself to do. For example: Clearly I couldn't just address my invitations by hand....that would take hours since I would re-do them all once they begin to look even a smidge crooked. So, I dreamed up the idea of creating a design to use in addressing our envelopes and then printing them out on my printer. Behold:

The back of the envelopes (for the return address) will be stamped with my parent's address via an ink stamp I purchased from expressionery .

Back to business. Please humor me while I share with you our remaining laundry/ to-do list as we have EXACTLY (gulp) 3 months and 1 day until our wedding. Please appreciate the fact that I alphabetized the list for your reading enjoyment.

• agonize over whether to use the reception hall's standard white card box, or make a fabulous plum one.
• buy (white) shoes and earrings for the big day in time for next fitting
• create day of timeline/schedule for the parents, 'maids, and vendors
• design seating chart for the reception once the RSVPs start coming in
• enjoy the taste testing at the reception hall. attempt to pick out chicken that doesn't taste like rubber
• finish invitations...before throwing them out the window
• get thru the rest of the fittings without letting the alterations lady take me to the cleaners
• hope the hair and make-up trials go alright
• investigate that stuff that plugs tear ducts so i don't cry like a baby and ruin my make-up
• just breathe
• keep searching for gifts for the bridal party and parents as well as ties and socks for the groomsmen.
• line up day of transportation
• make or rent table runners for reception that are the perfect shade of plum
• notify florist of when we want to see a mock-up of the bouquets
• order tuxes for the men
• peruse the mall for beachware for the honeymoon
• question if i will be able to design the programs myself while staying sane
• rehearsal and rehearsal dinner time and details still need to be established
• scrutinize the pros and cons of having either a candy bar, favor boxes filled with chocolate, or no favors at all
• try to find more things we can slap our monogram onto
• undertake making a sign to lead our guests from the parking garage to the ballroom where our reception will be held
• veil needs to be purchased at some point in time
• welcome bags for out of town guests need to start taking shape
• x, y, and z are impossible.

Poll: Pick and Choose...Our Invitations

Dear bloggity friends,
The road to our invitations has been a long one. Long story short, I need your help. Our invitations are in your hands....
Pick your favorite:
#1: the original
#2: watermark. reservation: the watermark appears lavender and i wanted to stay away from that...

#3: monogram at top #4: monogram with bars
#5: monogram on both sides
#6: large monogram on one side

#7: monogram on top and bottom
Plllllease vote on the right hand side of my blog or leave a comment. We need to pick one of these pretty little things in the next 3 days!!
Excuse the blurring of information for privacy purposes as well as the random gray lines at the top of some of the designs.

{Update: 41 votes. #1: 5 votes, #2: 24 votes, #3: 3 votes, #4: 0 votes, #5: 4 votes, #6: 4 votes, #7: 1 vote.}

USPS: Love Stamp

Dear USPS,
Thank you for issuing the Love: All Heart stamp.

None of the wedding hearts stamps went with our color scheme and I was dreading having to put the flag or liberty bell on our invitation envelopes.

I can go to sleep now, knowing that our invitation envelopes will not be de-faced by stamps such as these.

much love, jessica "paying-too-much-for-stamps" lynn

Poll: Rehearsal Dinner Invitations

Although she doesn't know it, Molly from these little moments is the inspiration behind today's post and poll! (If you haven't checked out her blog, you NEED to. It is a must read!)

Molly's post today contained a snippet about rehearsal dinner invitations that got me thinking about whether or not rehearsal dinner invitations are really necessary.

My thoughts: Necessary:

1. If you're having a wedding where guests are going to come into town the night before, it is customary to invite them to the rehearsal dinner, along with your bridal party and parents. Those out-of-town guests will need to know the info below in #2.

2. The dinner location is quite a hike from the rehearsal venue. If your bridal party is not familiar with the area, sending an invitation ahead of time with necessary directions (to hotel, rehearsal site, dinner location, etc) would be helpful and appreciated.

3. Traditionally the Groom's parents host the rehearsal dinner. If mom-to-be wants to spring for the invitations then it's your lucky day! Send them out, because who can resist a charming piece of mail, like the one above from bird and banner?!

My thoughts: Unnecessary:

1. When you have amazing communication skills and full intend on making everyone aware of the plans for the rehearsal and dinner well in advance through other means (e-mail, newsletter, evite, etc).

2. When the thought of licking another envelope, attempting to find a stamp to correlate with your invitation design, etc. is enough to make you go crazy....then a rehearsal dinner invitation is not necessary.

What do you think? Are you going to send our rehearsal dinner invitations?! Vote now!

{Total votes: 42. yes 11, sometimes/it depends 24, not necessary 7.}

Polls: Invitation Insert Cards

In a previous post, I gushed about how much I love the invitation proofs that "a friend" made for us. From the results of the poll, it appears as though the clear favorite is the invitation without the bars on it!!

Over the weekend, our super-fabulous invitation designer whipped up some proofs for the inserts that will be included in the invitation packets (rsvp card, reception info, directions, etc.). She did a great job of carrying over the look of the invitation and the general feel of what we wanted in our invitation suite.

So, which style of insert card do you like best from the proofs below?! The design will be carried over to the other inserts (rsvp card, directions, etc.) to make everything look cohesive.

Please please please vote on the poll for this week and let us know your thoughts! And if you didn't get to vote on the poll about our invitations themselves, feel free to view them here and leave a comment on this post!

(Option #1) formal

(Option #2) ampersand

(Option #3) swirly
(Option #4) watermark

{Results: 30 votes! formal: 5, ampersand: 5, swirly: 10, watermark: 10}

Poll: Invitation Design

Over the weekend, Chris and I were estatic when we received proofs back from our "invitation designer." We told her that we wanted the invite to be based off of the monogram designed for us by Erin of e lucky designs. She sent back some amazing proofs and now we just need to pick a design!

The poll for this week will have you voting on what your favorite design is. Help us pick!!

(Option 1.)

(Option 2. Bars right below and above the monogram)

(Option 3. Bars around our names)

Items to note:
1. Last names & venues have been blacked-out for privacy issues.
2. We want our invitations to look something like this (invites of Mrs. Eggplant from weddingbee )when we are all done. I'll be posting later about options for colors of cardstock, backing, ribbon and pocketfolds.


So, which one is your favorite!? Vote now! Goal for voting on the poll: 30 votes!!
{Results: 33 votes! option 1: 18, option 2: 7, option 3: 8, back to the drawing board: 0}

Paper Cost

I'm envisioning our invitations as beautiful pieces of work (created by someone fantastic!) once they are done. Miss Eggplants' invitation below via weddingbee is where my inspiration for the layout/assembly comes from:

The contents of our invitations will include:

- A black 5x7 pocketfold

- Plum ribbon with monogram seal attached on the outside of pocketfold

- Raspberry backing cardstock

- White cardstock with black printing

- One white outside envelope

- An RSVP postcard or RSVP card and return envelope

- Inserts with info about the reception, directions, etc.

I sat down tonight to find out what the raw materials for the invitations are going to cost me. I compared three on-line paper companies to see what I can get for the best price. Here is the breakdown for 125 invitations:

(Breakdown does not include price of ribbon, postage, or cost of printing.)

I highlighted the cheapest of the three companies for each component. The only problem with Paper Source is that the company doesn't carry anything in a deep plum or raspberry.

Are there any other affordable paper companies out there that I missed!?

In Search of an Invitation...Again

With the decision to potentially change my theme/color scheme for my wedding comes the opportunity again to browse through 1000's of beautiful invitations!

Darci from With This Ring was kind enough to share this beautiful fabric that she bought for her table runners and I think that it would be a great start to the inspiration behind our invitations.

I would like to incorporate a pattern similar to this on my invitations. Possibly a strip on the top and the bottom of the invitation itself? (Can you imagine how great this pattern is going to look against the black OR white linens Darci is going to put it on!? I can't wait to see what she does with it!)

I am still loving the above invitations (from the knot) due to the sheer simplicity of each one. Perhaps I could add in a damask corner graphic of some kind!?

My overall vision for the invites is starting to come together slowly but surely. To me, this is one of the most important pieces of a wedding since it is the first taste guests will get of what's ahead.

If anyone has any links to invitations or knottie bios featuring a black/white theme or a damask pattern, I would love to hear from you!

Request the Honor of Your....Input

Tonight I went for my first attempt at my DIY invitation.

I'll post it first and then chat/blog about it...(excuse the editing that cut off the top right corner graphic & I edited out our full names and changed the date...but you get the idea!)

• The backing will be navy blue and the actual card stock will be white with navy printing as shown.
• Not too sure about the exact shade of green I will be using....or if I want to change the green text into silver or gold...
• I would like to turn the back of the invitations into where our rsvp, directions, accommodations, and reception cards will be housed, like KerCo's invitations I mentioned in a previous post. (You will have to check out the end of her bio to see the back of the invites!)
• In keeping with KerCo's invitations, I would like to replace her beautiful ribbon with a thin white nautical nylon rope to wrap the invitations in and coordinate with the "tying the knot theme."
• I am still struggling with a way to use my "we're tying the knot" saying/theme into the invitations without making it tacky since I want to keep my invitations elegant and clean. Perhaps some sort of a tag affixed to the rope like KerCo attached to the ribbon:

John & Jane Guest

"we're tying the knot!"

• The corner graphic is taken straight from KerCo's invitation and supplied to me by Knottie MrsPinkAJV (find her on the Grand Rapids, MI board!) You can also find other corner graphics at istockphoto .

Any input on the current design, how to make it better, or other thoughts/ideas would be much appreciated!

Pretty Writing

I recently found this caligraphy example on one of the 10 blogs that I visit daily. I am in LOVE.

I have thought about addressing the envelopes myself. I feel as though I am somewhat "artsy." As in, I can make it work. But, this is divine.

And I want to use navy ink since my invitations will most likely be navy and white. I wonder how many navy sharpies/caligraphy pens I will have to go thru to make my invitation envelopes look anything like the above images.

Invitation Inspiration

I came across this invitation on the classic bride blog:

How clean and crisp! I think that I would like to do something similar in navy and white (with the nylon rope that I have been raving about!) Buuut until I have an engagement ring on my finger...there is only so much I can plan!